Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
by Aulizia
Summary: A little exploration into what might have happened to Captain Englehorn when he got back to New York, and was very sadly forgotten by Peter Jackson. Obviously I couldn't resist there being a romantic angle to that exploration. Englehorn/OC.
1. I

**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

Unfortunately, it doesn't belong to me. I saw Peter Jackson's 2005 version of _King Kong_ for the first time recently, and it just so happened that I was reading _Remembrance_ by Theresa Breslin at the same. This story is a piece of pure self-indulgence that was inspired by both works.

Englehorn/OC warning: don't like it, don't read it. :)

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**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

**I.**

The S.S. Venture had been back in New York for two days, but Captain Englehorn hadn't yet left his ship. His crew- what was left of it anyway- had disappeared, and he had no idea when, or indeed if, any of the men would be back.

He wasn't sure that he wanted them back at the moment.

As a younger man in his early twenties, Englehorn had been taught many of life's hardest lessons. He knew that it was astonishingly easy to force the body to function even in the most hellish circumstances. It was only in the aftermath of action when pain struck most keenly.

So for the moment, because it gave him an opportunity to recover, he savoured the silence and solitude of his empty ship.

Indeed, he had anticipated savouring it for a good while longer, but the sound of someone hesitantly clearing their throat gave him cause to lift his head and turn towards the intruder.

_"Was?[1]"_

The woman ignored the question that was both barked and slurred in her direction. She proceeded to free her hands from her gloves as though he hadn't spoken.

"_Was wollen Sie?_[2]" The words tripped off Englehorn's tongue like machine gun fire. This time his visitor met his hostile gaze for a moment before faltering.

"In English? You laughed so hard the last time I attempted German I thought you were having a fit."

Englehorn snorted and turned his head away. He obliged her in her request, although his accent was thicker than usual. It was so much easier at that moment to use his native tongue.

"I could use a laugh."

"And another drink?" she asked, watching as he reached for a half-empty bottle of amber liquid.

"I'm not one of your God damn patients, Mary!"

"You wouldn't be almost passed out in a drunken stupor if you were," she said tightly.

Englehorn stared at her- stared her down. It was a look that he had perfected over the years, a precise mix of contempt and intimidation delivered in a shock of lightning blue. He was almost disappointed by how quickly Mary dropped her gaze.

"Look, I'm not here to make you mad," she murmured quietly.

"No? Why are you here?"

"I was-" she started, and then stopped. A frown creased her brow as she looked down and hesitantly moistened her lips.

"You were-?" Englehorn prompted, shifting in his seat.

Mary squared her shoulders and met his eyes again.

"Two nights ago a couple of men were brought into the hospital from the docks. They have injuries like- like I've never seen before and whenever they're conscious they rant and rave about an animal- _a monster_."

Sobering quickly, Englehorn pushed himself out of his chair and stood.

"And?"

"And?" she echoed him, voice coloured with frustration and exasperation. "I wonder! _And_ who do I know that deals in dangerous and exotic animals, maybe? Because I have it on good authority that he turned up just two nights ago." She drew a fortifying breath. "What's going on, Captain?"

"Nothing is going on, Miss Floyd," Englehorn said, his voice crisp and final as he turned his back on her.

"Then where is Mr Hayes?" she asked with quiet desperation. "Where are Lumpy and Choy and-!" the sentence ended with a sharp gasp as Englehorn turned and grabbed her roughly by the arm.

He pushed her back against the wall of the bridge. He was unable to fully quash the savage thrill of being able to overpower her so completely after so many weeks of playing a puppet in Carl Denham's nightmarish show. Sickened with himself, he let Mary go almost immediately and staggered backwards, stomach churning.

"Get off my ship."

Mary shook her head. Her face was pale, but her expression was determined.

"Please, Captain-"

"Damn you, just go!" he roared. She weathered the assault, begging him with her eyes for something that he had no name for in any language. "_Bitte, Mary,[3]_" he growled softly.

It was not an order but a plea this time, and perhaps that was why she finally obeyed. With the shaky gasp of something suppressed but left unsaid, she looked one last time into his face before she turned and left, escaping just before he broke down.

* * *

[1] What?  
[2] What do you want?  
[3] Please, Mary.


	2. II

**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

**II.**

Captain Englehorn looked at his watch. It was almost three in the morning. The streets were relatively quiet in this part of New York, although Englehorn was aware of a number of wretched souls huddled together in doorways. Recent evictees, he assumed. Good people fallen on hard times. He knew how that went.

He pulled up the collar on his coat and leaned back against the window of a failing, already rundown, shop. A cigarette or two helped him pass another twenty minutes. His eyelids were just beginning to drop heavily when he saw a familiar figure leave the hospital by the back door.

Mary Floyd.

He had meant to leave her alone, particularly after their last encounter, but he wanted her help. She approached him without realising that she did so; her head was bent down against the wind, her shoulders hunched against the cold night air. She was barely a step away when he spoke.

"Hello, Mary."

Her head snapped up at the sound of her name. There was a look of panic in her wide eyes, until she realised who had spoken, and then her body relaxed without losing all of its tension.

"You scared me half to death."

"I'm sorry."

They were only two words, but the seriousness of Englehorn's tone made Mary study him carefully. In fact, she regarded him so closely that he itched to turn away. He was afraid of what she might find if she looked too deeply. He forced himself to stay still, however, to allow her to read his precise meaning and to reach her own conclusions. She rewarded him for this sacrifice with the faintest softening of her lips.

"It's all right," she said at length, and perhaps she would have added something more, but a group of rowdy young men tumbled out onto the street opposite them, filling the latent night with drunken noise.

"Come on," Englehorn said, keeping an eye on the men as he took Mary's arm. "I'll walk you home."

"You'll walk me home?" she asked, an unfathomable look on her face. "Why are you even here?"

Englehorn gave an incomprehensible murmur in reply and started to walk. He didn't slow his pace, so Mary was forced to quicken hers to keep up with him. They travelled two blocks before the captain consented to speak again.

"I'd like you to come and take a look at Jimmy. When you have the time."

"Why? What's wrong with him?"

"He's back in his cage. I found him there this morning."

That morning Englehorn had decided that it was time again for action. He could drink and smoke himself into a stupor for only so long before he rebelled against his own indolence. It had been something of a surprise to find Jimmy holed-up below deck, however, and he had spent a large portion of the day deciding what to do with the boy.

"And are you going to tell me why he's in a cage?" Mary enquired, eyeing him doubtfully.

Englehorn had no intention of telling her anything, but there was something about those serious brown eyes of hers that demanded an answer, of sorts, however unwilling he was to give one.

"He feels safe there."

"What do you mean?"

The captain digested that question. "The last time we 'spoke' you wanted to know what had happened to my crew," he said slowly.

Mary's head was shaking a denial. She didn't look as confident now as when she had boarded his ship. "Not- Mr Hayes?" she whispered, barely seeming to breathe.

Englehorn stopped walking. There were some truths he couldn't keep from her any longer; no matter how deep in denial he might have liked to bury them.

"Hayes is dead. They're all dead." And there was a deadened, detached tone to Englehorn's voice as he spoke as well.

"Oh my God," Mary choked, hands covering her mouth.

Emotions passed across her face like clouds in the moonlight. Englehorn was glad that it was too dark for him to see the full extent of her pain. She was English, notoriously reserved and controlled, in a moment she would be in charge of her grief.

"How?" she asked him, struggling hard to rally.

"Kong."

"_Kong?_" Mary sounded confused. "I don't- I don't understand."

"You will soon enough." Derision dripped from Englehorn's words. "Carl Denham is determined for the whole world to understand."

**

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	3. III

**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

**III.**

"I didn't expect you to come so soon."

It was an icy cold morning when Captain Englehorn greeted Mary from onboard the Venture. The threat of snow hung heavy in the air over the harbour. Mary shivered and crossed the gangplank. Her breath was visible and her cheeks red.

"I was worried about Jimmy."

Englehorn regarded her for a moment, as though weighing her words.

"This way."

She picked her way after him carefully. It seemed that repair work was finally underway on the battered steam trawler. The evidence of life onboard the Venture eased Mary's heart a fraction. The place had been like a ghost ship on her last visit. At the time, she hadn't realised how appropriate that was…

In the clear light of day, however, it was easier to imagine that her conversation with Englehorn the night before had been the product of an overtired mind. She hadn't been able to find any reference to this "Kong" that he had mentioned. She had stopped at the library before coming to the docks, and had also leafed through her dog-eared German dictionary without success.

And yet, nagged a voice, her mere presence onboard the trawler attested to the realness of that cryptic conversation.

"Is Jimmy still down in the hold?" she asked. It seemed safer to talk than to allow her mind to wander.

"Yes. I've asked one of the welders to leave him food and water."

"He needs more than food and water to keep him alive. He's not one of your animals."

"Then he should come out of his cage and stop acting like one."

"You could try _talking _to him," Mary suggested gently.

He could still shock her with his hardness. Not cruelness, he wasn't a cruel man, just… hard. As if to underline this point, Englehorn turned and smiled without a trace of warmth.

"Talk is for women, Miss Floyd. Why do you think I asked you to come? Mind the ladder on your way down."

"You're not coming too?"

"I have other things to do," he replied dismissively, and then walked away.

Mary looked heavenward for a count of ten. Once her emotions were checked, she made her lone descent into the bowels of the Venture.

She willed herself not to heave when her foot touched the bottom rung of the ladder. It was two years since her last visit to this particular part of the ship, and she had mercifully forgotten the smell.

"Jimmy?" she croaked. She cleared her throat and tried to call again as she walked deeper into the hold. "Jimmy?"

"Go away."

Mary stopped and turned towards the voice. She saw the broken young man sitting in the dark corner of one of the cages. He was filthy. She could smell the sweat on his skin and see the almost-feral glint in his eyes.

She took a deep breath- and instantly regretted it.

"I'm not going to go away. Captain Englehorn-"

"The captain don't care!"

Mary winced. "I'm sure he's given that impression, but I don't think it's true," she argued, remembering the request that had brought her here in the first place. "I don't think he'd let you stay here if-"

"I'll be gone soon anyway," Jimmy interrupted. Mary listened and took a cautious seat on an upturned barrel. "Don't sit down!" Jimmy scowled. He hadn't seemed to hear a word she'd said, but he was clearly paying close attention to every move she made. "You can't stay."

Mary's expression was hidden by the shadows. "No, I know, but I thought you'd made a home for yourself here."

"It ain't home now though, is it?" He glared at her for not understanding. "It's like _she_ said. Why don't good things ever last?" Jimmy demanded, challenging Mary to give him an answer.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I wish I did. It seems to me like some people suffer more than their fair share of misfortunate, but I suppose-" she broke off momentarily, as though to order her thoughts. It was certainly simpler to ease the pain of a broken leg than that of a broken heart, she reflected grimly. "My father once told me, 'none of us can control what happens to us. We can only control how we react to events afterwards'."

"How we react?" Jimmy echoed sullenly.

"He used to say, 'the good things in life are so much more powerful than the bad, but we always go and make the bad things stronger. If we only remembered to hold onto every happy memory, to treasure them, and keep them safe-" she paused again, pressed a hand against her chest, and for a fleeting moment she thought she could smell barley and summer rain. "Then they can show us a way through the dark times'," she whispered, voice hitching.

She fell silent and reflective. Remembering a little girl on her father's knee, sitting in front of a crackling fire, the sheep safe for the night, the cows just in from milking… It was Jimmy who next spoke dolefully.

"Mr Hayes wanted me to make something of myself- get myself educated, he said."

"He wanted you to have the things he couldn't," Mary said softly.

Jimmy turned away. She reached out a hand to touch him, but he shrugged her off.

"We didn't even get to bury him-" his voice broke, "or any of the others."

Mary's hand unconsciously searched her coat pocket. Her fingers curled tightly around the battered old pocket watch that she carried with her, always.

"That can make it harder to let go."

Jimmy finally looked at her properly, a confused frown on his distraught face. There were tears in his eyes that he refused to let fall. They sat in silence in the dim light for a few minutes, close but miles apart.

"It was my fault," Jimmy said at length, more to himself than to Mary. "If I hadn't been there- if Mr Hayes hadn't been trying to protect me-"

"No-"

"You weren't there! You don't know what happened!"

"Maybe, if you told me-"

"I don't want you to know!" Jimmy said violently. "No one should have to know the things I do," he added wretchedly.

**

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	4. IV

**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

**IV.**

Captain Englehorn walked across the deck of his ship to where a young sailor was hammering a sheet of metal. Each blow was delivered with such force that the man seemed to have a personal vendetta against the steel panel. Englehorn waited for a sufficient break in the banging before he spoke.

"I hear you're staying."

Jimmy paused to answer, although he didn't look up from his work. It had cost him something to emerge from below deck, although he wasn't sure just yet exactly what the price had been.

"I'd like to, Captain. For a while anyway."

"You can stay as long as you like, Jimmy. I'll need someone who knows what he's doing if we're going to train a new crew."

Jimmy glanced up, more grateful than he wanted to let on for the hard-won praise. He opened his mouth, but the words he needed to say lodged in his throat. Englehorn took pity on him. He could respect anyone who fought to stand after being brought so low.

"Leave that for a minute," he said, motioning for Jimmy to follow him.

Jimmy put down his hammer. He wiped his hands on the front of his shirt and fell into step behind the captain. He was puzzled when they went inside the ship, but he became increasingly confused as they walked towards the crew's cabins.

Englehorn stopped outside one of the doors, with its chipped wood and peeling varnish. Jimmy swallowed hard.

"Hayes had no family. No one to send his belongings. I know he looked on you as something of an adopted son, Jimmy, and I thought-" he paused and clicked his tongue, "-Miss Floyd thought it would help you to have something to remember him by."

Jimmy was too shaken to speak. Englehorn opened the door to the small cabin that Hayes had shared with Lumpy. The pile of books that had fallen haphazardly onto the floor during the voyage back to New York caught Jimmy's attention first. He bent to pick them up.

"Hayes would want you to have those especially," Englehorn said. He noted the title that was in Jimmy's hands and nodded thoughtfully. "You might start with that one."

"_Winesbury, Ohio_ by Sherwood Anderson?" Jimmy read aloud. He ran a finger down the spine of the book. "Thank you, Captain," he said quietly.

"As I said, it was Miss Floyd's idea," Englehorn said with a slight shrug. He hesitated, gave the young sailor a brisk pat on the shoulder, and then made to leave him to his privacy.

"Captain!" Jimmy called suddenly. Englehorn turned back. "When you see Miss Floyd again can you tell her that she- that she dropped this?" he asked, looking guiltily at the floor as he threw a man's pocket watch to the captain.

Englehorn caught it in one hand. He stared down at it for a moment before he pocketed it.

"I'll tell her."

**---**

The watch sat in Englehorn's pocket for the rest of the morning. It seemed surprisingly heavy for so small an object. From the moment Jimmy had given it to him, he had been expecting Mary to reappear. He had lost count of the number of times that he had seen her toying with the thing over the years.

_He_ had never had a good look at it before however, which was why, he told himself, he found himself examining it on the bridge later that afternoon.

It had never been of particularly good quality, but the mechanism had broken at some point in its life, so now it didn't even keep time. There was an engraving on the back that was rubbed and unreadable, but it was the photograph carefully folded and hidden inside that had drawn Englehorn's attention.

He smoothed out the creases and frowned at the handsome young man in a British army uniform. On the back, someone had neatly written - "Bobby, 1915" - although the letters had run into one another slightly, as though they had once been wet.

"He had that taken a year before he died."

Englehorn froze at the sound of Mary's voice.

"Sorry," she continued, embarrassed, "I should have knocked."

"I shouldn't have-"

"It's all right," she said quickly, stepping forward. "I've wanted to tell you about him for a while now actually, but I thought you might think it was…" she struggled and failed to find the right word.

"Unusual, certainly," Englehorn supplied for her. "Who was he?"

"My brother."

Englehorn looked up slowly. Mary was standing at his shoulder, looking at the old photograph. He could smell the subtle scent of her skin, a curious combination of antiseptic and peppermint.

"We think he died at the Somme."

A strong shudder passed involuntarily through Englehorn's body and Mary bit her lip.

"This was a bad idea-"

"No. Tell me."

Mary looked up at him, searching his face, before consenting.

"I was going to save him, you see." Her lips curved upwards in a hollow smile. "The telegram only said that he was missing in action. I was already training as a nurse by then, and I was old enough to go to the hospitals in France."

"Were you?" Englehorn asked carefully. He looked at her deliberately and the hint of a blush crept into her cheeks.

"Well nearly, besides, it wasn't hard to add a couple of years to my birth certificate. No one was looking too closely back then," she said quietly.

"I remember." They were each silent for a moment. "Did you find him?"

Mary shook her head. "Never. I found one of his friends. He gave me Bobby's watch and told me the end was quick. I wanted to believe him."

"You didn't?"

"Would you have?" she asked, and he finally realised why he recognised the shadows in her eyes.

He tried to picture her as a girl in France working in a military hospital, overworked and under-prepared, losing the fragments of her innocence one dying solider at a time. He looked from her to her brother.

"You should hate me, Mary."

"Just as you hate me, I suppose?"

"Perhaps I did once. I was a willing solider," Englehorn admitted with blunt honesty. "I was proud to fight for my country. To begin with. But not indefinitely. When I was aware that I felt more empathy for my enemy than my countryman I knew I would never go home. Given the current state of things, I think I had a lucky escape. But you must have returned to England- for many years afterwards?"

"I fooled myself into thinking that things could go back to how they had been," she nodded sadly. "But nothing fit anymore. _I_ didn't fit. I had seen too much, but not enough. It took me years to understand that I needed to get away."

"Ten years?" Englehorn calculated. "I'm surprised you weren't distracted into marriage."

For some reason, this made Mary laugh. "Well, no man ever asked me to marry him, so that was easily avoided. But yes, love and duty did keep me in England while my parents were alive, around ten years, as you say, but once they were gone it was easy to leave."

"On a ship bound for New York," Englehorn supplied, her life from this point he was familiar with.

When the S.S. Calgaric had found itself in difficulties in the mid-Atlantic the Venture had been one of the ships to respond to its SOS call. Captain Englehorn and his crew had picked up two lifeboats full of distressed passengers.

Mary Floyd had been one of the last people helped aboard. She had lost everything but the clothes on her back when the Calgaric sank. The trauma had crippled her for two days. She only roused herself to volunteer as Lumpy's nurse when a few of her fellow passengers began to succumb to shock and the inclement weather.

Englehorn had seen her life rekindle. He had never questioned her about her life before she had become his castaway for fear of dousing that fragile flame. He found that there was something satisfying about her story now that he had heard it however.

"You were running away."

Mary smiled wryly. "I was escaping."

"Then we have something in common."

"I suppose…" Her half-smile was still in place. "Except that I have to thank you for making my escape possible."

"It has been useful to have someone with medical training indebted to me," Englehorn admitted without shame. There was a rare, almost playful, glint in his eyes.

"I think I've sown more stitches into your crew than I've used to darn clothes, Captain!"

"They used to wait until we got back to New York if they could. You're a rather better nurse than Lumpy ever was-" he finished with a distant, sad, sort of smile. Mary reached out instinctively to lay a hand on his forearm.

"Speaking of being a nurse," she said, some moments later, "I'd better go if I'm to have any hope of making it to the hospital in time to start work this evening."

Englehorn wondered if he was imagining the way his skin remembered the touch of her fingers after she'd drawn away. He watched as she carefully re-folded the photograph of her brother and reclaimed the pocket watch.

"Thank Jimmy for giving it back," she said softly, knowingly. "And thank you," she added, "for listening to me talk."

**

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**


	5. V

**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

**V.**

The matron had been furious with Mary for being late. People everywhere were being laid off, she'd warned. An English immigrant needn't think that her job was safe. It wasn't an idle threat either. An increasing number of New Yorkers couldn't afford healthcare, leading to empty beds, and superfluous nurses.

Mary had been ordered to clean the patients' bedpans as punishment for her tardiness. It was unpleasant, but mindless work, and her thoughts were free to run down dangerous paths.

As no man had ever deemed her so, she knew she wasn't beautiful. She was not fragile, she was not delicate, and she could not in good grace even claim to be young anymore. She was, as her father had once declared her, 'a good useful maid'. She was practical and hardworking. She had brown hair and brown eyes, and a kind heart that was always overlooked.

She had seen enough suffering in the world to be grateful for the simple things in life. She was content, and that should have been enough to make her happy. It _had_ been enough to make her happy once, but hearts have a tendency to dream and yearn and long for things out of reach. In that respect, she was no different from the most beautiful starlet on Broadway.

"Mary! Have you seen this?"

A poster was suddenly thrust rudely in front of her nose. She had to tilt her head back an unnatural degree to be able to see what it said.

"Carl Denham's King Kong. Captured Alive," she read aloud. _Denham. Kong_. Mary could suddenly hear the drum of her heartbeat inside her head.

"They're calling it the Eighth Wonder of the World!" Edith enthused. "Ruthie knows one of the guys who works as a steward at the Alhambra. She says he can sneak a few of us in. You should come!"

"I don't know-"

"Look," Edith began, with a roll of her eyes, "don't give me an answer yet. It's not due to open for a couple of weeks." She left the poster in Mary's hand. "Ruthie's offered to introduce us to a couple of the men who work there- actors maybe!" Her green eyes sparkled with stars. She nudged Mary playfully. "A much more savoury bunch than those sailors you hang around with I'd say!"

"I'll think about it," Mary smiled tightly.

She was grateful for the distraction when one of the young hospital doctors appeared just after she'd tucked the poster away inside her apron.

"Nurse Jackson? Nurse Floyd? Leave that. You're wanted in theatre straight away."

The two women snapped to attention.

"Nothing was scheduled for this evening, was it?" Mary asked quietly, as they followed the doctor quickly down the sterile corridors. Edith shook her head.

"Must be an emergency," she whispered in reply.

It was most definitely an emergency. And it was one of two patients that Mary really hadn't wanted to see on the operating table again. His name was Carter. That was the only name that they had been able to find for him.

He was a dockworker, one of the men who had been brought into the hospital on the night that the Venture had returned to New York. He had been missing the lower halves of his legs at that time, but the original injury had spawned something new and even deadlier.

"Clostridial myonecrosis," sniffed the surgeon. It was as though he were identifying a specimen in a jar and not a living person.

_Gas gangrene_. Mary's heart sank. She said a silent prayer for the poor man. The stumps of his legs were swollen and grotesquely purple, covered in large blood-filled blisters, many of which were easily the size of a child's fist.

The operation itself was slow and painstaking. The amputations difficult and complex. The man clung to life for so long that Mary started to believe that he might actually make it. But in the end, nothing they did made a difference. Carter, the dockworker, died just before dawn.

Mary's heart was heavy as she crawled into bed that morning. Edith's flyer was lying on the chair that she used as a bedside table. Maybe she wasn't beautiful, but she wasn't stupid either. It looked like she would be making another visit to the docks. It was turning into a bad habit.

---

It was a cold but sunny afternoon when Mary next found herself standing beside the Venture. The ship looked marginally less battered than it had done on her previous visit. That wasn't the only improvement though. Jimmy actually managed to wave a half-hearted greeting.

"You want me to fetch the captain?" he asked, walking over to her. He tucked a book into his back pocket.

"You can just point me in the right direction. I don't want to disturb you."

"He was down looking at the keel in the engine room earlier," Jimmy said, leading the way regardless.

Mary found that she was once again climbing down the perilous-looking ladders of the Venture. Maybe there was something in what Edith had said; maybe she should stop shimmying around on boats?

She passed several new faces on her way below deck. Sailors enlisted as new crewmembers? They stared at her with varying mixtures of curiosity and contempt.

"Captain, visitor for you!" Jimmy called, when they reached the engine room.

Mary's stomach was already churning nervously by the time she caught sight of Englehorn. He stepped out from behind part of the large machinery. There was a puzzled, but not displeased, look upon his face when he saw her.

"Miss Floyd. Why is it that whenever I turn around you seem to appear from some new corner of my ship?"

"Just one of life's little mysteries," she said. His almost teasing welcome made her feel dreadful. She dredged up the memory of poor Carter to steel her resolve.

She had always been far too curious for her own good- or too nosey, as her mother would have said. But it wasn't idle curiosity that fuelled her need to know what had happened to the Venture, and its crew and captain on their last voyage. She had lost friends. She had seen a man die. She just wanted a few answers.

"What can I do for you, Mary?"

She blinked and looked up into Englehorn's expectant face. She remembered his anger when she had first tried to confront him, and she remembered his evasiveness, his determination to keep her ignorant.

But mostly she remembered how patiently, how indulgently, he had listened to her story the last time that she had seen him. Mary wondered how transparently her face reflected her thoughts because she could see the captain's expression slowly changing. She breathed deeply.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I wondered if you'd seen this?" she countered his question with one of her own, and produced Carl Denham's poster from the pocket of her coat. Englehorn took it from her- his face suddenly unreadable.

"As a matter of fact, I have."

"We should have killed it when we had the chance!"

"Jimmy!" Englehorn barked.

Mary had forgotten about Jimmy. She looked over her shoulder at him quickly, and then turned back to Captain Englehorn. His face was set in the hard inscrutable lines that she was coming to despair of, but Jimmy- _Jimmy_ had barely been able to suppress himself. Jimmy would talk.

"Wait!" Mary called after the retreating figure of the young sailor. "Jimmy?"

She had climbed up two rungs of the ladder when Englehorn caught her. His arm tightened around her waist as he pulled her back down to him.

"What are you doing!" she demanded, when her voice came back.

"Leave it!"

It was a warning, plain and simple, but a warning _of _what- _from_ what? Regardless, Mary couldn't heed it. She felt reckless, down in the darkness of the ship with this man who was too close- too male- too much.

"Tell me?" she begged.

"No."

"If you won't tell me I'll find out for myself." She slapped a hand against the poster. Threat made, she turned again for the ladder, and again he dragged her back. She could hear the beat of her heart once more. Her blood thrummed through her veins.

"Stay away from Carl Denham."

"_Why?"_

Englehorn had her held by both arms. Mary got the distinct impression that he wanted to shake her. She waited for an answer to her question until her whole body ached from keening towards him in anticipation. Nothing. He gave her nothing.

"Let go of me," she finally demanded, so that he had no choice but to obey.

* * *


	6. VI

**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

**VI.**

Mary had her best dress on- such as it was- she had even allowed an insistent Edith to fix her hair and makeup. She was in the most luxurious surroundings that she had ever seen (albeit hidden at the very back of the auditorium), but she wasn't enjoying herself.

It was thirteen days since she had left the Venture in a fit of righteous anger. She couldn't leave the memory alone. It was like a sore tooth that she could never completely forget. She prodded and played with it to the point of distraction.

She doubted that Captain Englehorn's mind was similarly troubled. In fact, she very much doubted that the captain and his new crew were even still in New York. They would have left port as soon as the ship was completely seaworthy. That was the way of things. The Venture would leave for weeks, maybe months, at a time, and Mary would continue the mundane task of living as though her world were still whole.

Well, it wasn't only unwhole, but broken this time.

Mary was in perfect understanding of her own heart. She knew very well that she was more than a little in love with the captain of the tramp steamer. Why she couldn't be content with the cursory place that he had allocated her in his life she didn't know. It was more than she should have expected, she knew that too. He was brave and strong, intelligent, determined, and easily the most attractive man that she had ever met, she-

"Mary!" Edith hissed, poking her hard. "You're missing it!"

Mary looked up with a jolt. This was what she had risked Englehorn's ire for after all. To get her precious answers. She should at least pay attention.

If she squinted, she could see that there was a man on stage, and if she strained really hard, she could just about make out what he was saying-

_"-in which seventeen of our party suffered horrible deaths, their lives lost in pursuit of a savage beast, a monstrous aberration of nature. But even the meanest brute can be tamed. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, as you will see the beast was no match for the charms of a girl. A girl from New York."_

The audience erupted into titters of amusement followed by applause. Mary had a harder time dismissing the casually referenced death toll.

_"-bringing to mind that old Arabian proverb, 'And lo, the beast looked on the face of beauty and beauty stayed his hand. And from that day forward, he was as one dead.'_

_"And now, ladies and gentlemen I'm going to show you the greatest thing your eyes have ever beheld. He was a king in the world he knew, but he comes to you now a captive. Ladies and gentleman, I give you, Kong! The Eighth Wonder of the World!"_

The curtain lifted, and Mary no longer had to squint to see what was happening on stage. Not that she could fully comprehend what she was seeing. _Run._ It was the whisper of a voice in her head. His voice. She felt the wall behind her. There was no easy escape. She couldn't have moved anyway. Like the rest of the audience, the beast on stage transfixed her.

Kong.

It was a low guttural sound that lodged in her throat and threatened to choke her.

The man, Denham, it had to be him, was speaking again, but the audience, coupled with her own heartbeat, was too loud for Mary to make out his individual words.

That voice in her head was getting louder and clearer. … _stay away from Carl Denham_… It had seemed so ridiculous, then, to take the warning seriously. And no one else appeared panicked. The colossal beast on stage looked docile, safe even. …_seventeen of our party suffered horrible deaths_… Mary's stomach twisted into cramp. Mr Hayes, Lumpy, Choy! …_we should have killed it when we had the chance!_

Mary looked around as some further spectacle began on stage. A few people were shifting in their seats, as though anxious, but Denham and his performance had successfully bewitched the majority of the crowd.

The ape was chained, Mary reassured herself weakly, and even though he was so impossibly huge, he looked faintly pitiful. Was he just another wild animal broken to the will of man? She would have said yes, if she didn't still have Englehorn's voice inside her head. He knew more about wild animals than she could ever hope to imagine, and he had told her to stay away from the theatre.

"You know, I think I've seen enough," she said, hardly audibly, for her mouth was so dry.

She was ignored, or wasn't heard, by her party. They were far more interested in what was happening on stage. Denham was speaking again. The audience was applauding and the orchestra playing, as a beautiful woman dressed in white was raised up from below the stage.

For the first time, the beast displayed an interest in what was taking place, and then, with a deafening roar he came to life.

Mary felt the blast of noise push her backwards. She had never heard a sound like it- it was terrifying, completely and utterly, and it wasn't stopping.

From all the way across the theatre she could see the lights of a dozen camera bulbs flashing. The creature was becoming increasing agitated. He strained against his bonds, exerting the inconceivable strength of his gigantic muscles, and then, it seemed so inevitable, Kong broke free.

Mary recognised the potent taste of fear. In her mouth it had a hot metallic tang. People were already running and screaming for the exits, men and women, husbands and wives, lovers, they reached for each other in blind protective panic as they tried to flee. No one reached for Mary. She was alone in the crowd when terror settled in her heart.

* * *


	7. VII

**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

**VII.**

Getting anywhere near the Alhambra was like swimming against the tide. The streets were full of screaming, hysterical people- running into each other, into the road, into cars, into _him_. In fact, if one more person ran into him, they might just find it was his fist that they connected with first.

Captain Englehorn had only been a few blocks away from the theatre, the first time that the night had been ripped apart by a roar from hell. He hadn't been able to see the ape, but he had felt the earth tremble with Kong's titanic presence. While everyone around him froze, he started to run. At every moment he expected to be confronted by the creature, but his path remained almost unnervingly clear.

By rights, he shouldn't have even been in New York. He should have been on his ship in the middle of the ocean- thousands of miles away from what felt like a reoccurring nightmare.

He had rarely felt the need to explain his decisions to the men whose wages he paid, so when he had turned the Venture around just two days out to sea he had kept quiet as to the reason why.

Jimmy, God bless the kid, had started some ludicrous rumour about there being damage to one of the propeller blades. Half the crew- the new crew that Englehorn had only just managed to cobble together- were probably back at the docks looking for work onboard ships where the captain's sanity wasn't called into question.

He supposed one or two of the less experienced sailors might buy Jimmy's story. They had no way of knowing the only thing that had forced the Venture to return to port was the captain's decision not to run.

He wanted to be in New York tonight. He wanted to be there to face her when she found out the truth; he wanted to know the damage. That was all he had imagined risking.

He hadn't known that Fate wasn't finished toying with him yet. Because something had changed when he'd heard that unforgettable, unmistakable bellow. It was no longer simply desirable to reach the Alhambra. It was an absolute necessity. Want had been replaced by need in a heartbeat.

It was that need that now fuelled his pounding footsteps, but it still took him several lifetimes to cover the distance of those last few streets. When he finally rounded the last corner, and caught sight of the theatre for the first time, it was even worse than he'd feared.

It looked like an explosion had taken place inside the building. Debris was scattered all over the street. As he paused briefly, resting his hands on his knees as he caught his breath, he lifted his head to look up at the gaping hole that had been ripped in the brickwork. He should have known this would happen. Carl Denham was the antithesis of Midas.

_But he hadn't brought the ape back single-handedly…_

Englehorn succeeded in once again pushing that uncomfortable truth to the back of his mind. He crossed the street and ran into the ravaged building.

It was in the theatre's foyer where he found what he realised he'd been looking for- a little band of walking wounded- those people who had been unable or unwilling to flee out onto the streets. A cursory glance around told him that most of the injuries looked to be treatable. The relief this gave him was short lived, however, because when he scanned the women tending the injured, he failed to find the familiar face that he sought.

Everything he knew about Mary told him that this was where she should be.

He slowed his breathing and forced himself to consider a new scenario. He looked at the casualties again. Slowly this time, seeking her face, unsure of what to hope for now. He had seen Kong decimate the men of his crew- strong, tough, _armed_ men. It would be so easy for the ape to extinguish the life of one defenceless woman.

He didn't much care for the growing feeling of unease that gnawed at his gut. _Gottverdammt! Where the hell was she? _Anger was always more palatable than fear. Maybe she hadn't come to the theatre after all, but then that would mean that she could be _anywhere_ in the city.

He dismissed the idea almost the instant it crossed his mind. He could track a lioness across the plains of Africa, anticipate her movements and know exactly where to set his trap. Generally speaking, people were just as predictable as animals once you got to know them. She was here. He _knew_ she was here somewhere. He could depend on Mary to honour her threats, which meant he was missing something important.

"Ma'am!" Englehorn demanded the attention of a red-haired woman who looked suspiciously nurse-like. "I'm trying to find someone who was meant to be here tonight. Her name's Mary Floyd. She's-" he was about to launch into a description, but he'd seen the flash of recognition in the woman's green eyes the second that he'd mentioned Mary's name.

She looked around, scanning the foyer herself, her brow furrowing slowly.

"Ruthie! Where's Mary?" she hollered over her shoulder. Another young woman looked up from bandaging a man's bloody arm.

"Isn't she with you?"

The two women exchanged a glance while Englehorn's patience quickly ebbed. They then turned in unison to look towards what was left of the stairs that led to the auditorium. He followed their gaze, his eyes slowly narrowing.

"Tell me she's not back there."

"I think- I don't- I mean, I _thought_ she was right behind me!"

"But you didn't check."

He didn't wait to hear a response to his scathing assessment. Instead, he took a few determined strides towards the stairs, ignoring the man who yelled after him to stop.

A quick look around told Englehorn that the corridor had partially collapsed not far from the main foyer. It was just about wide enough for a man to pass through, but the whole place looked dangerously unstable.

He had a choice. Wait for help, or go on alone.

He'd never been a very patient man.

The air grew uncomfortably thick with dust from shifting plaster and unsettled brickwork as he moved forward. Every so often the building groaned, as somewhere iron girders buckled under the strain that they weren't designed to hold. The earthy rumble of stone would follow, to be punctuated by the splinter of cracking wood.

Englehorn paused each time the building shuddered. He held his breath until it settled, and then he squared his shoulders and forced his way onward, trying to move quickly.

He couldn't say the tight, narrow space reminded him of anywhere he'd ever wanted to remember… He caught his leg on something that jutted sharply from the darkness, and felt the bite of jagged metal tear into his flesh. He reluctantly slowed his pace after that, although the dull pain was a lot easier to bear than the claustrophobic darkness.

Somewhere something snapped with a crack like gunfire, forcing Englehorn to stop for several minutes as he waited for the erratic pounding of his heart to ease. He tried to laugh it off, along with the clammy sweat that clung to his skin, but it was an angry unnatural sound that left his mouth, fuelled by the fury he felt towards the betrayal of his nerves. She had better be on the other side of this tunnel.

It was with great relief that he finally reached the open space of the auditorium and could breathe again. The extent of the devastation was once again clear to see. On stage stood what remained of the chains that had been forged to hold the giant ape. They were broken, _shattered _into pieces. The audience's seats were uprooted and strewn about as though a child had tossed them around in a tantrum. The upper stalls were partially collapsed. The ceiling cracked…

Kong's destructive force had seemed unbelievable on Skull Island. Transplanted to the city, it seemed unholy. It wasn't only the building that was broken. There were people too. Something sharp and icy seeped through Englehorn's veins. He knew the feeling, but wasn't about to name it.

"Mary?" he shouted, upsetting more dust. His voice echoed strangely around the ruined space. He picked his way further into the theatre. "Mary!" He tried again, straining to hear anything aside from his own echo. It took a little while, but he was eventually rewarded by the most beautiful sound.

"Thomas?"

* * *


	8. VIII

**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

**VIII.**

Clearly, she was hallucinating. She must have hit her head a lot harder than she'd thought. That was the obvious explanation for what she _thought_ she was seeing, except that the man with a death-grip on her arm must have been having a similar hallucination, because he managed to ask her if this was the rescue party.

"Over here!" Mary called, because there did indeed seem to be _someone_ there. It didn't mean it was him- it just meant that- it just meant- oh God.

He was in front of her, dropping to his knees when he saw that she was down on the floor. Mary opened her mouth to voice the questions that were ricocheting off each other inside her head, but all she managed was a small squeak when Captain Englehorn reached for her.

For one crazy perfect moment she thought he was going to kiss her. He cupped her chin with strong, sure fingers and tilted her head- only to then announce:

"You're bleeding."

Mary jerked free from his touch, mortified that he might be able to read the longing in her eyes.

"It's nothing," she said quickly, glancing away, composing herself. She didn't see the way his jaw set hard. "What are you _doing_ here?" she managed to ask, as she turned back to him a moment later in complete disbelief.

He started to speak, but he seemed to hesitate and stop himself. Mary was sure the flippant reply he gave wasn't the answer that he had originally intended to give.

"I could ask you the same question."

_You could, but you know my answer…_

"I couldn't leave him," she said aloud, and for seemingly the first time Englehorn noticed the man that was lying on the ground beside Mary. He visibly stiffened.

"Who's he?"

"His name's John."

"John?"

"He's trapped."

The captain stared at her as though he didn't understand what she was saying. Mary leaned forwards and opened her mouth to explain more fully, but he held up a hand to keep her silent.

"Can you walk?"

"Can I-? Of course I can walk!" Mary replied, nonplus.

Englehorn regarded her closely, as though he didn't know whether or not to believe her. Her skin prickled under his probing gaze. She found her fingers reaching to touch the sticky gash on her forehead; his brilliant blue eyes returned to that spot over and over again. She watched his chest rise and fall with a deep breath.

"Then the reason you're still here is because…?"

"John is trapped," she said, slowly.

She glanced at her recently acquired patient. 'John' was indeed trapped. He was also drifting in and out of consciousness. The lower half of his body was pinned under some ornate masonry that had fallen from the ceiling. She had heard his groans of pain after regaining consciousness herself and finding herself alone.

Mary watched Englehorn look up to discover the trajectory of the fallen stonework. She saw him grit his teeth when he saw what she had already had time to note. The auditorium's ceiling was a hairsbreadth away from falling in on itself.

"You need a damned keeper, you know that?" he muttered under his breath.

Mary decided to ignore the barbed comment. In much the same way that she was trying to ignore everything but the one important fact that he was here. She looked back at him apologetically when his gaze returned to her face.

"If you went back and got some help-" she started to suggest.

"No."

"But if-"

"No! If anyone's going back it's going to be you."

"I promised him I wouldn't leave."

It was there again- a definite tightness around the corners of Englehorn's mouth. He jerked his head, indicating that he wanted a private word. Now. Mary expected to be dragged unceremoniously to her feet, but when he reached for her arm he was unusually restrained. Perhaps he thought she was more hurt than she'd confessed? He gently tugged her a few steps away from John, who was moaning laboriously, before rounding on her.

"He's half dead!" he hissed into her ear.

"He's half alive!" she snapped back just as harshly. "I won't leave him."

"You can't save everyone, Mary. He's not your brother!" Englehorn said with such perception that Mary's breath hitched painfully. She stepped back and stared up at him in anguish.

"He's _someone's_ brother," she whispered, once the pain had eased. _"Please, Thomas?"_ she begged without thinking.

His gaze flickered. She felt her cheeks colour. He continued to look terribly, deeply unhappy, but Mary shamefully took his silence as agreement.

She actually felt herself relax. She returned to John's side and waited for her orders. After a moment's pause, Englehorn started searching the wreckage for something that he could use as a lever. He found a long, thick metal pole that looked as though it had also fallen from the ceiling, and pulled over one of the uprooted seats to use as a fulcrum.

Dividing her attention between the captain and her patient, Mary was sure the former was trying to disguise a limp.

"Are you hurt?"

"If I can move this stone are you going to be able to pull him free?" Englehorn asked, ignoring her concern.

Mary nodded quickly. The injured gentleman was slightly built, and she was both strong and determined. She didn't know if John could still hear her, but she quietly explained what was going to happen while Englehorn tested his strength against the metal bar.

"Ready?" he asked grimly, bracing his weight against the pole.

"Ready."

Mary had positioned herself behind her patient so that she could drag him backwards, but she kept her eyes trained on Englehorn. She held her breath as he began to exert a terrible strain on his body. Risking injury to help save a man he didn't even knew. She bit the inside of her lip hard enough to draw blood. She could see his body protesting, could imagine ligaments tearing, muscles ripping, and she wanted to scream at him to stop, but at the same time she knew that this was the only option that she had given him. Guilt settled in her stomach like lead.

It felt like forever, but the stone was eventually forced to give up its deathly grip. John managed one final scream of agony, as he was relieved of its weight before blacking out. Mary used every ounce of strength that she possessed to pull him backwards so that Englehorn could release the lever, which he did with the slimmest of margins to spare.

The stone thumped back down to the ground heavily. The sound reverberated dangerously around the cavernous space. Mary froze, as did a panting Englehorn, their eyes met as the auditorium shuddered. Mary found that she couldn't look away, couldn't even blink. Neither of them moved until the dust settled, but after that the winded captain cursed in a truly eclectic blend of languages.

"We need to leave," Mary said, after nervously waiting for him to finish. The look he shot her was almost frightening.

Together they managed to support the injured gentleman, although every movement was clearly agony for him. He drifted in and out of a hazy consciousness, moaning with pain so that it was more of a relief for his rescuers when he fully succumbed to unconsciousness.

Mary was relying completely on Englehorn to know the safest way out. She followed trustingly, thanking whatever otherworldly force had sent him to her tonight.

She still had to force herself not to baulk when she saw their exit though. She wouldn't have been able to make herself enter the dark dangerous tunnel alone. She couldn't tell if the captain felt the same way. He was silent and stoic until they had travelled some way down the corridor.

"Damn it!"

"What is it?" Mary asked, ashamed of the fear that she could hear in her voice.

She felt rather than saw Englehorn glance across John's body in her direction and then look away again.

"Nothing."

It hadn't sounded like nothing, but carefully making their way down the dark collapsed corridor wasn't the time to press for answers. They inched forwards a few more feet before Mary could guess the source of Englehorn's concern.

"Is this your 'nothing'?" she asked. They came to a stop when they encountered an impasse of freshly fallen stone.

"See if there's a way through," he commanded, taking all of John's weight.

There wasn't exactly a huge amount of room to move as Mary eased forwards. She squeezed passed the limp body of their patient, but when it came to brushing passed the captain she faltered. Her whole body was acutely aware of his nearness, and for the first time, she was grateful for the concealing darkness.

"Be careful," he murmured quietly. She could feel the warm whisper of his breath on her upturned face.

She cautiously edged further forwards so that she could test the rocks in front of her, almost crying with relief when she saw that she could see chinks of light on the other side of them.

"I think- it looks like it's barely a foot thick," she called back to him. "Hang on," she scrambled up the rocks, ignoring the warning that Englehorn shouted after her. She struggled to shift a couple of the loose stones on top of the pile, giving a little prayer of thanks when they rolled forwards revealing a hole wide enough for a man to crawl through.

"Can you see anyone on the other side?" Englehorn asked.

"No… How's John doing?"

"Still breathing."

Mary licked her lips, placed two fingers in her mouth and gave a loud high-pitched whistle- a useful trick she'd been taught on the farm. She wasn't sure if it was that or the earlier sound of the falling rocks which brought a couple of men running, but she was grateful to see them all the same.

"Ma'am?!"

"Wait there!" she told them. "We need your help with an injured man!"

She scrambled back to Englehorn, grazing her hands and knees in her haste to reach him, once back she quickly explained what they needed to do.

"You should have gone through first."

"Rubbish. You couldn't manage him on your own back here."

It was awkward manoeuvring John's inert form through the small gap. They stopped a couple of times while Mary sought to find his pulse, and once for her to check his airways. The whole time she found herself far too close to the captain for comfort. It wasn't that she disliked the close proximity- it was that she liked it far too much. Still, it was with a great surge of relief that Mary handed John over to the hands of the two men the other side of the blockage.

"You next, ma'am," one of them called, returning for her quickly.

A moment later there was a bang, a huge explosion, like artillery fire, somewhere outside in the city. The ground trembled. It knocked Mary off her precarious perch atop the stone pile and sent her tumbling backwards.

She landed hard, winded, but she barely had time to feel the cold floor under her fingertips before strong hands found her and lifted back onto her feet. Englehorn cradled her aching head against his chest and used his body as a shield to protect her from the shifting stone and metal. As Mary shied against his body, she realised that could hear his heartbeat. She puzzled over the sound of the strong and steady beat- not racing and panicked like her own.

When the building stopped shaking, when _she_ stopped shaking, Mary peered up at him. She could just make out the gleam of his eyes looking down at her through the darkness.

"All right?" he asked. There was a strain to his voice that Mary hadn't heard before.

She nodded shakily. "I think so. You?"

"I'm fine."

She wasn't sure that she believed him. She desperately wanted to check, but she didn't get the opportunity.

"Ma'am?!" The men on the other side of the newly blocked obstruction were shouting and hurrying to clear away more rubble. "Are you okay?"

"Go." Englehorn urged her reluctant body forwards as a new opening was cleared. Mary hesitated, not wanting to leave the safe circle of his arms now that she had found herself there. "I'll be right behind you," he promised.

* * *


	9. IX

**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

**IX.**

"-no, I'm fine! Please just be careful with him. I don't know how badly he's hurt-"

Englehorn breathed the clean air, closed his eyes and leant back against the wall. He needed to stop and rest his tired, aching body for just a moment. He let the sound of Mary's voice wash over him while he did so.

It wasn't the words that were important- just the sound of her voice. It had taken time to train his ear to her accent. It wasn't the clipped cold plumy tones of the English middle classes; it was broader and warmer, with a rolling R that gave his own surname a unique inflection that made it her own.

Most importantly, however, if she was close enough for him to hear then she was safe and he could relax.

"-and she wants me to help her."

Englehorn opened his eyes when he realised that Mary was now addressing him. She bit her lip and stared back at him with concern, undoubtedly believing that he wasn't paying attention. She tried again.

"Some of the porters have arrived to take people to hospital. Edith wants me to-" she broke off suddenly.

Englehorn didn't understand why, at least not until he realised that the floor was vibrating. He grabbed Mary's arm.

"Move!" he commanded, pulling her up the stairs that led to the theatre's foyer as the cataclysmic boom of the auditorium collapsing followed them.

They stopped in the middle of what was left of the little makeshift hospital. Safe. For the moment. Englehorn felt as though every muscle in his body was wound like a spring, but the extra adrenaline surge seemed to have had the opposite effect on Mary. She sagged weakly against his shoulder, as though finally defeated.

"I can't take much more of this," she confessed quietly. There was an unnerving wobble to her voice. He felt responsible for it.

"We need to finish evacuating this building now!" a man in uniform shouted.

One of the injured women screamed. "I'm not going outside with that monster on the loose!"

Englehorn could feel Mary's eyes on him. God help him, he couldn't resist their lure, but he wished he had when he saw the conflict in their troubled depths. She knew what he had brought back to New York now. She had suffered the consequences.

It was a hard cross to bear. It reminded him rather too keenly of the other people who had paid for his mistakes- in far too many cases, with their lives. Mary would never forgive him for the part that he had played in the deaths of the men that she had loved. But he had known that for weeks. Just as he knew he would never forgive himself.

"Come on," he said, as he propelled her forwards, out into the cold night air.

She would have stopped, if he had let her, she would have made sure that every one of those people left that theatre before she did, but there was only one life that Englehorn was concerned with that night, and he was in no mood to watch her risk it again.

Outside, Mary looked around the street nervously. It was eerily quiet and empty. She grew paler as she noted the fallen stonework, the overturned cars and the broken buildings.

"Where do you think it is?" she asked, eyes darting everywhere.

"I don't know."

He didn't want to have this conversation. He could feel that they were edging ever closer to a point of no return. He wanted to dig in his heels and slow that process for as long as possible.

Mary shivered, and not merely with fear, her torn dress was thin and her arms were bare. In a final act of chivalry, Englehorn shrugged off his coat. She was obviously too cold to refuse the offer of extra warmth as he draped it around her shoulders. It seemed as though her mind was only able to focus on one thing, however.

"Do you think they've caught it yet?"

"I don't know, Mary."

"You could have offered to help them," she said. He wasn't sure if she was being serious. "I'm sure they would have been interested in your particular brand of expertise."

"I doubt they care about capturing it alive now."

"No. I suppose not." She was quiet for a moment. "It killed them, didn't it? Mr Hayes and the others?"

"Yes and no."

"That's not a very good answer."

"Then ask me an easier question."

She tilted her head to one side slightly as she looked up at him. "I don't think I have many easy questions for you at the moment."

**---**

He followed her to the hospital and waited. It seemed the natural thing to do. Where else was he supposed to go?

At least the hours weren't exactly wasted. Englehorn spent them finding out what had happened to Kong. He picked up new information from the less serious casualties as they were admitted to the hospital. It was just after dawn when the news broke that the ape was dead.

Englehorn didn't know how to react. He supposed he felt a small measure of relief. No one else would be hurt. It might also bring Jimmy some closure, but he felt no satisfaction that things had come to an end this way. He felt only the needless waste of it all, but perhaps even more keenly, he felt his own position as a pawn on Carl Denham's chessboard.

Before he could dwell too deeply, however, Mary appeared and found him in the corridor.

"You're still here?" she sounded surprised. He wondered how that was possible?

"So are you."

"Matron told me to go home."

Englehorn nodded, pleased that someone had made her see sense, even if it hadn't been him. He hoped the matron had also managed to examine Mary's head injury, not that he had allowed anyone to attend to his own cuts and bruises. He held out a hand to her, which she took without speaking and allowed him to guide her home.

She lived relatively close to the hospital, in a tiny little one-room apartment that she rented from some ogre of a landlady. Englehorn imagined that she was far too exhausted to do anything but stumble over her own feet and allow herself to be governed by him as he steered her down the streets. He imagined wrong.

"When did it seem like a good idea?"

He pretended he hadn't heard, and then he pretended he hadn't understood.

"To bring the ape back to New York?" Mary clarified, tugging him to a stop outside her front door.

How was he supposed to answer that question? He took his time. He was trying to determine the truth amid the lies that he had told himself.

"Thomas?"

The disarming sound of his name on her lips was a disaster. For a third time, it compelled him to act without thinking.

"Never. It never seemed like a good idea."

"_Never?" _She sounded both confused and appalled. "But then- I don't understand _why_."

"Don't you?"

"No!"

"I did it for the money."

"The money?" Mary looked sceptical, and then she looked shocked. "You led more than a dozen men to their deaths _for the money_?!"

"You don't understand."

"Of course I don't understand! Who would understand that?"

"You weren't there."

"No, I wasn't. I've been told as much before. I wasn't there, but I'm still capable of determining right from wrong! If you think I'll accept that as an excuse for your actions then you're sadly mistaken."

"I didn't realise I was accountable to you," he said coldly.

He took a step forwards, ashamed to admit that he was trying to intimate her into silence. It didn't work. She narrowed her eyes, guessing his intent, which only heightened his shame.

"Don't," she snapped. "I'm warning you-" Mary began. It was exactly the wrong thing to say given Englehorn's current frame of mind. She seemed to realise that the second she spoke because her voice broke off prematurely.

Those three little words had never failed to goad a reaction from him. He had been trying to fight it, but he felt his own anger reach the level of hers in a flash. He couldn't- wouldn't _ever_ strike her, so he did the only other thing that he could do to silence her wounding mouth.

He kissed her. Hard. Swallowing the startled gasp that fled her lips. At every moment he expected her hand to slap his face. He could taste the anger on her tongue. It burned right through the core of his body, fuelling his desire to make her submit- or maybe it was just fuelling his desire.

She was so soft and pliant in his arms, and she had never allowed him this close before. Perhaps he wanted to punish her a little for that too.

"_Mary…_"

"No," she breathed, albeit shakily. She wrenched herself free. "I don't know what you're playing at but I need you to stop."

"You think I'm playing?"

"I don't know what to think anymore!"

"You wanted to know the truth."

"I wanted you to tell me the truth! There's a difference."

"The facts are the same."

"No!" she cried. Her voice cracked. "You treat me like a bloody fool. You tell me half-truths and part-stories and you still expect me to jump when you snap your fingers. You yell at me, you manhandle me, you- you kiss me! And I've had enough!" Her chest was heaving and her eyes were overly bright. She stared at him accusingly. He met her gaze without flinching. A muscle twitched in his clenched jaw.

"Have you finished?"

"Yes- no! I never thought you were a stupid man. I certainly never thought that you were so selfish that you'd risk the lives of your own crew on-"

"Enough!" he roared. "You've said enough." He couldn't listen to any more. "I understand."

"No, you don't understand! You just-" she stopped abruptly. He watched her falter. She lifted a shaky hand to her head and swayed dangerously.

"Mary?"

"You just think-" she tried a second time, but was forced to stop again.

He hesitated as she closed her eyes, all the colour had gone from her face. She cursed under her laboured breathing. He'd never heard her swear before but that was the second time she'd managed it in as many minutes. She pressed a hand against the cut on her forehead, biting her lip against the dizzy pain he could see she was feeling.

He was frozen, helpless, furious and afraid, but when her knees buckled he was still there to catch her.

* * *


	10. X

**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

**German Translator  
MoriMemento**

**X.  
**

Englehorn sat in an old leather armchair and kept a vigil at her bedside. Rest. That was all the doctor had prescribed. He had been a fat, balding man and it had made the captain's skin crawl to see him paw at Mary with affected indifference.

He had diagnosed a combination of concussion and exhaustion, and had then gone on to lament the inferior state of a woman's nerves until his own health had been in danger.

"_Komm schon, öffne deine Augen für mich__,_[1]_"_ Englehorn sighed wearily.

It humbled him. _She_ had humbled him. She had yelled at him, condemned him, rejected him; it made no difference to the peculiar power that she held over him.

The strange thing was that he knew his interest in her had never been purely altruistic. She was useful. She had once told him so herself. She could don her different hats: nurse, cook, seamstress… but from being simply useful, somehow she had made herself invaluable.

He had always supposed that she felt indebted to him and his crew, and that this was why she asked so little in return for her favours. Companionship while they were at port, and the occasional language lesson, that was as much as she had ever requested.

Englehorn looked at Mary's pale face and the barb that was lodged in his chest twisted painfully. He watched her closely. Her skin was still smudged with blood and dirt, but it was the impossibly soft feel of that same skin under his fingertips that stayed at the forefront of his mind.

When he couldn't stand the punishment any longer, he pushed himself out of the chair. He eased a kink out of his neck and circled the small room restlessly. His eyes fixed on an object here and there- a hairbrush, a sewing kit, a German dictionary, a pocket watch.

He frowned, puzzled, and looked more closely at the familiar timepiece. It had been allotted its own special place on the windowsill. What was more, the creased photograph of Robert Floyd was now framed and standing beside it.

How Englehorn had once hated that watch, convinced, as he had been, that it had belonged to Mary's lover. Not that she had sacrificed any less for her brother than she might have done for a sweetheart. Once or twice, over the time that he had known her, he had found himself wondering what she would sacrifice for him.

Nothing, perhaps. After his recent behaviour. It was what he deserved. She _must_ hate him now- and not without good reason. That didn't stop him from returning to her side, however, to listen for the soft reassuring puff of her breath. he shouldn't have kissed her- at least not in anger. He had cemented his downfall with that one reckless act, but he knew he would never apologise for the stolen liberty.

Who would have thought that her lips would be so soft, her breath so sweet, her passion so hot? This was part of his problem. He flattered himself with her discovery. He thanked and despised every man who had looked on her face and seen nothing of worth.

A light knock at the door interrupted Englehorn's internal monologue. Before he rose to answer the summons, he brushed the back of his fingers gently against Mary's cheek.

"_Du hast es nicht verdient, noch mehr zu leiden. Und ich fürchte, dir nichts anderes bieten zu können._[2]" He felt the faintest whisper of her eyelashes against his fingertips and almost weakened. "_Deswegen sage ich dir nun "Goodbye", Mary, aber wisse, dass ich nicht selbstlos genug bin, es nochmal auszusprechen._[3]"

**---**

The sun shone on her face. Mary's eyes flickered open with slow reluctance, roused, as she had been, from a deep, heavy slumber. She squinted through the kiss of sunlight, and grimaced at the dull pain that drummed through her head.

She couldn't quite remember why she was in pain, but she could remember shattered fragments of a receding dream. The harder she tried to recall them, however, the faster they slipped through her fingers. In the end, all that she was left with was a strangely bitter aftertaste, and a jumble of words that she didn't entirely understand.

"You're awake."

It took a moment for Mary to realise that this second voice wasn't simply inside her head too.

"_Jimmy?"_

She sat up gingerly and timidly, modestly hugging a blanket around her body. She had no idea why the young sailor was in her room, and because her tongue seemed to have glued itself to the roof of her mouth, she was prevented from asking him the question.

"Feeling better?" Jimmy asked. He was sitting on her bedside table, staring at her candidly. Or rather, he was sitting on the wooden chair that she normally used as a bedside table.

"I hardly know," Mary replied, dazed.

"You passed out." He informed her, handing her a glass of water, which she drank greedily. "You hit your head."

"I hit my head?" She looked up from the glass. She hated feeling slow and stupid, but her memories were confused by sleep, and, evidently, a head injury.

"You know, at the theatre." Jimmy looked away as he said this, and Mary started to remember flashes of action. It helped that she had just spotted Carl Denham's crumpled poster on the floor. Her heart rate picked up a beat. She had to set the glass down for fear of dropping it.

"How long have I been here?"

"Twelve hours, I guess. Doctor came and looked at you yesterday. He said you needed to rest."

She nodded stiltedly, despairing of her patchy memory. She gave her head a slight shake. "But what are _you _doing here, Jimmy?" she asked the burning question that didn't yet have an answer. He hadn't been at the theatre- of that she was sure- but _someone_ had, hadn't they…?

"Looking after you, of course. Want another drink? The Captain said you like tea, but I don't know how to make that so I'll have to fix some coffee," he apologised, jumping to his feet.

"The Captain?" Mary whispered, glancing around the room, as though she expected to see him standing in a corner. Usually her heart gave an embarrassing little skip at the mention of his name, but today she felt a painful throb instead. Jimmy had paused. He looked thoughtful, as though he was making his mind up about something.

"He- well, that is- he thought you might feel better if he weren't here when you woke up."

And that was when she remembered, everything. Her fingers, traitors that they were, touched her lips immediately. Her face flooded with colour. She had been angry, oh so angry, but now that anger had passed she was left with only an aching void where her heart had been. Had he taken care of her? She could feel the tears that pricked the backs of her eyes and despised her own weakness.

"You know, I've been thinking about what you said," Jimmy continued talking, either oblivious to Mary's pain, or attempting to distract her from it. He started to heat the coffee.

"What I said?" she echoed him, at a further loss.

"About finding a way through everything that's happened."

Mary's lips formed a surprised 'O'. She managed a nod though, not feeling up to the task at hand, but striving to keep her head above water nonetheless. It seemed like such a long time ago since they had spoken about Mr Hayes and the others. She couldn't help but picture the giant ape, and unwillingly imagined the deaths that it might have caused. Her stomach heaved.

"Have you found your way then?" she asked difficultly, and wondered if maybe he could help her find her own.

"Kind of. Maybe. In a way. When I heard Kong was dead I went to see him- _it_. I had to, see. It was just lying there on its back, like it was asleep or something, just like Mr Hayes, and I could think straight again. I don't think Mr Hayes would have wanted any of this. It still hurts, and everything is still broken, but all the anger kind of drained away."

"You aren't angry with Captain Englehorn then?" Mary asked, before she could stop herself.

Jimmy frowned. He took a moment to think before answering the question. "More people would be dead if it weren't for the Captain."

"What do you mean?" Mary whispered, ignoring the bubbling of the coffeepot. She was prepared to beg if that's what it took. "Please Jimmy, you've _got_ to tell me this time!"

* * *

[1] Open your eyes for me.  
[2] You don't deserve more pain, and I'm sure that's all I can offer you.  
[3] So I'll say goodbye, Mary, but know I won't be selfless enough to say it again.


	11. XI

**Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained**

**German Translator  
MoriMemento**

**XI.**

When Englehorn had arrived back at his cabin onboard the Venture, he had kicked off his boots and slowly peeled off his clothes. He filled a basin with cold water, keen to wash away the dust, grime and blood that clung to his skin. He bathed the angry wound that was cut into his thigh, cleaned it with a liberal, painful, dose of iodine, and then bandaged his leg and donned a fresh set of clothes.

Afterwards, he laid back on his bunk, a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The liquor burned his throat and created an artificial heat inside his numb body. He had no further plan of action. He very much doubted that the next move was up to him.

Glass drained, cigarette smoked, he closed his eyes and searched for sleep. As time dragged by, all he could seem to manage was to doze between fitful dreams. Strange dreams. Dreams of home. And the island. And of Kong. And of her. The snapshots of a dozen images swirled sickeningly around his head.

Perhaps he slept, perhaps not, he couldn't tell, he pushed himself off the bunk to refill his glass when he suddenly became aware of the hurried sound of footsteps. Funny. He'd almost hoped for sirens. He braced himself. This was it then. Except it wasn't.

Perhaps he was asleep after all.

"Hear me out before you throw me overboard!"

But he barely heard the words. He simply looked into Mary's anxious face and ached. She stared back at him intently. It confused him- _she_ confused him. He had said goodbye. Given her a chance to escape. He had left her in Jimmy's care. Charged the boy with the task of looking after her, seeing as he couldn't be trusted to do so himself; he expected the police at every moment.

"Where is he?" Englehorn demanded slowly, blue eyes narrowing. Mary took a backwards step to block the cabin's exit. She spread her arms across the doorway to stop him.

"Jimmy? Hiding from you, I expect." She shouldn't be smiling as she spoke, but she was… just faintly.

"He has some sense then."

"He has a great deal of sense," she agreed. He didn't trust the soft tone of her voice, nor the warm expression in her eyes. "Don't be angry with him. He told me exactly what happened during your voyage. He told me a lot more than you did," she chastised him gently.

He knew she placed a great deal of importance on words. She attributed them a strange power. He had always favoured action, but he waited almost hesitantly to see if her enlightenment had changed anything.

"You didn't tell me you'd turned the Venture around. You didn't tell me that you save Carl Denham and the others twice." Mary shook her head. "You let me believe the very worst of you."

"You were very willing to believe it."

"I was hurt," she admitted.

His eyes flicked automatically to her forehead. A fairly stunning bruise accompanied the cut there today. She shouldn't _be_ here. She should be somewhere safe, recuperating, away from him.

Mary waited for his gaze to meet hers again.

"I mean it hurt that you didn't trust me, but the things I said to you-" she looked ashamed. It was not an expression that he had often seen her wear. "I was wrong."

"It doesn't matter."

"It _does_ matter," she breathed as though it pained her. "You saved my life, and I never thanked you."

"You don't need to thank me."

"But I want to!" she said urgently.

He didn't want another debt owed to him, and if that was her only reason for standing in front of him, filling one more corner of his ship with the memory of her presence, then it would have been kinder if she had stayed away. Nothing fundamental had changed. She needed to remember that fact.

"I still took the job for the money."

"Doesn't everyone?" she said with a sigh. She looked suddenly weary. "But why? That's what I still don't understand. Why this job?"

"It doesn't matter anymore."

"It matters to me!"

The strength of her voice surprised him. It was not that he had never seen the determined glint in her eyes before, but he had always bulldozed her into submission before.

"All right." Englehorn breathed out a long drawn breath. "No more half-truths," he agreed, quietly, speaking mostly to himself. Mary waited expectantly; her whole attention focused on him. He dug his hands into his pockets and met her gaze. "I was planning on selling the Venture."

He saw the surprise, no the shock, register on her face, but he continued his story before giving her an opportunity to respond.

"Maybe to buy another ship, maybe not, it doesn't matter anymore, but I had begun to tire of the weeks and months at sea. I thought I might turn my hand to something more settled, but plans like that require money. A great deal of money."

Mary's face had lost its colour completely.

"You love the sea."

"I loved the freedom of the sea after I left Europe. I loved the wide open space- the lack of gunfire and mud like quicksand and death…" He was silent for a long moment, reflecting on that last quality. "But the land has inducements too."

"Does it?" Mary whispered.

"You don't think so?" he asked softly, staring at her for a long moment, remembering how it felt to kiss her. "When they trace this mess back to me I'll probably lose everything."

Mary looked startled, as though that thought hadn't yet occurred to her, but he needed her to understand. She licked her lips and glanced away.

"Don't wait for them to trace it back to you."

"Run?" Englehorn was a little impressed with the speed of her solution.

"You could. You could take the Venture and disappear."

"I'm not going to do that."

"Why not?"

"A number of reasons," he said slowly. "A number of people," he corrected himself.

Mary frowned. She looked conflicted. "Captain Englehorn-"

"I thought you'd stopped that?" he smiled slightly. He rocked back on his heels, testing the weight of the confession that rested on his tongue. Surely there was something he could offer her besides disaster? "Don't you see? You win, Mary," he breathed, ever so softly. "I'm caught."

She looked more shocked than she had done when he'd told her that he'd considered selling the Venture. The one difference being that instead of turning a ghostly white her face flooded with colour.

"That's absurd."

"Why?" he asked. It was his turn to smile, although he did realise she was going to bolt if he wasn't careful.

"A hundred reasons!"

"Give me one," he murmured, leaning closer. She blinked up at him and stammered.

"O-one?"

"Mmhmm." He nodded, waited, but he didn't play fair. He never had. He had never believed he would. He cupped her chin and traced the soft fullness of her bottom lip, listening to her breath hitch. He sighed and shook his head. "Tell me what you want, Mary."

She didn't have the words, yet, to give an honest answer, but her body betrayed her desires. She leant into his touch, arching to follow when he coaxed her forwards, but the gentle pressure of her hand curled against his chest was his first real hint of victory.

"Thomas…"

He growled, and then his mouth was on hers, and he could finally luxuriate in the feel of her in his arms. She tasted of coffee and cream, and his body was licked with flame every time she moved against him. He splayed one hand against the small of her back, and knotted the fingers of the other in the soft thickness of her hair. Her nails curled against the back of his neck and she mewed softly when he pulled away too soon.

She blinked up at him with those eyes of hers that reflected his own. Her heart had called to his- her soul whispering gently that he take the time to look in her direction. Her past was a broken mirror of his own, but he would have her future.

"Mary-"

She stopped him. Pressed her fingers to his lips, drew a deep breath and gathered up her courage.

"You asked me what I want. What I want, just this once- I want something for myself."

He waited. He wanted the words. _Her_ words. He needed her to give them to him. Because then he would know that she meant it. He was still waiting when she lifted her eyes to meet his own.

"_Ich liebe dich, Thomas._[1]_" _

Four words, four words he hadn't heard spoken together for twenty years. Trust Mary to bait her trap with honey. He smiled slowly against her skin, and pressed a fierce kiss against her open palm.

"_Ich liebe dich auch,_[2]_"_ Englehorn told her seriously, perhaps more serious than he had been about anything in a long time.

He leant for her lips, but she tilted her head back, eyeing him with a mixture of hope and hesitation. It was hard, agonisingly so, but he let her find what she was looking for in his eyes. The smile that blossomed on her lips had never graced her face before. It was his and he meant to claim it.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, brushing his lips against her forehead.

"Wonderful," she laughed.

He smiled predatorily. _"Sehr gut._[3]_" _

He kissed her again, more deeply this time, coaxing from her the secret treasures of her soul. He pushed the coat off her shoulders and drew her into his cabin, closing the door behind them.

If life had taught him anything it was that these precious moments were rare and fleeting. There was always some new horror waiting around the corner to steal the joy from a man's heart. When happiness came along it was all you could do to hang onto it with both hands. That was what he intended to do.

He didn't know what the future held. He didn't know what the next day held! She was taking a huge risk on him, but he was determined to reward it. He would trust her judgement on this venture. Over the years, he had learnt that risk brought loss, but just occasionally, it brought the most amazing gain.

**The End**

**

* * *

**

**German Translations By  
MoriMemento**

**---**

Special Thanks to my Reviewers**  
ograndebatata -- RebeccaAnn -- marinawings -- MoriMemento  
**Thank you so much. You helped keep me motivated!

**---**

**To all of my Readers  
**Thank you for your time and patience.  
Writing this story for you has been a complete pleasure.

* * *

[1] I love you, Thomas.  
[2] I love you too.  
[3] Good


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